Twitter, if you haven't heard of it, is the next social interaction forum that has given voice to the peopl e who probably shouldn't be given one.
Twitter makes it incredibly simple for everyone and their mother to have their own personal blog where they can post their daily thoughts and musings to the entire online community. This back and forth throughout the Twitter community has seemingly made our world just that much smaller by broadcasting the thoughts, called "Tweets," of millions of people around the world.
Twitter has separated itself from most blogging and social networking Web sites by incorporating all of the blogs onto one domain. Where once, everyone had their own isolated blog hidden throughout the Internet, Twitter has put all of these blogs in the same easily accessible place. Its major advantage over other blogging Web sites is the company's decision to curtail the number of words in any given post to a paltry 140 and allowing members to blog-on-the-go using the text messaging function on their cell phones.
Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone and Evan Williams initially created Twitter in early 2006, but the site didn't really take off in popularity until much more recently. It seems everyone from the now defunct rapper MC Hammer to "Daily Show" funny man and author John Hodgman is now on Twitter posting what they had for dinner, what funny thing their cat is doing now or the newest Web site that the world must know about.
In an effort to find out what the big deal is with Twitter and to provide an informed opinion, I have created my own Twitter page, complete with picture, short bio, artsy background, and of course daily updates of funny things my cat has done lately.
Twitter also keeps track of both what blogs I am following and who, in turn, is following mine. At the moment I am following 39 different people and have 12 followers of my own - 12 separate people spread across the world are receiving my daily "Tweets" on the general coolness of beekeeping and respective lameness about most of what's on TV. At the same time, 39 separate bloggers are flooding my homepage with their thoughts of the day and must-have recipes.
As one might expect, the vast majority of "Tweets" are completely uninteresting and serve no real purpose except to take up space on the ever-expanding Internet. Despite what most bloggers on Twitter would like to think, the majority really doesn't care what time they go to bed or where they are planning to travel next month.
After five days on Twitter I found nothing of note in the pile of "Tweets" that continually build up in my homepage. With the relatively small number of bloggers that I am currently following, I am sure that I'm only scratching the surface of superfluous and yawn-inducing "Tweets."
Twitter is just the next big time-wasting Internet phenomenon that has promised to "connect the planet." Nothing special.
Andrew Rudansky is a sophomore English major whose cat just puked on his carpet.